Teresa Elliott wrote:
> Terry,
> You are asking someone who did this 4 1/2 years ago. <G> and someone who
> doesn't use GEDCOM, so I am not sure if it would GEDCOM out or not. TMG
> uses the UFT templates to create the source output, so I would assume that
> it will, but since I no longer have the UFT data, I can't say for sure.
>
> I can't be sure but I know that my roles came from UFT, so it is possible
> that the source types I have did too. So they weren't really modified, but
> were rather created. That is something Bob could answer better than me. I
> just know until I cleaned them all up, they still printed the way the did
> from UFT. Once you start cleaning them up, though you get different output
> based on which ones are cleaned up, so you get really motivated to finish
> it.
>
> The thing is when you are learning TMG, it's hard to know where you want the
> new data to go. Once you learn it a little more, then you can clean it up
> so that it reads the way you want it to and only have to do it once.
>
> Teresa Ghee Elliott

Hi, Teresa:

Your experience as a "UFT refugee" mirrors mine. However, there is an
additional alternative on the sources front.

If I were to do it all over again, yes, I would still "clean up" my
sources to conform to TMG's data organization. However, I would NOT
necessarily delete the custom output formats for each source (I don't
think these should be called "templates", BTW). In fact I am
contemplating *recreating* custom output formats for some sources, where
even though I have TMG's data correctly set up I just can't get the
output quite the way I want it.

I *DO NOT* advocate using custom output formats as a *replacement* for
entering the source data in TMG as the program expects. (Those who fear
I have defected to the "customize" camp may breathe a qualified sigh of
relief.) There are several reasons why standardized data entry is
important for sources, as it is for other things. But the custom output
can be tweaked to a fare-thee-well without the work of creating a whole
passle of source types just to accomplish a simple goal.

Darrell

--
Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter currently in exile in Illinois